


Microfiles from SES

by Feneris



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Gen, Giant Mecha, Nuclear War, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-01 14:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feneris/pseuds/Feneris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you fear for your life? Are you loosing too many employees to unforeseen hazards on unsettled worlds? Are you getting suspect packages from your local crime boss? </p><p>Do you wish to change that? If so contact Shiganshina Exploration and Security.  </p><p>Whether its the unknown threats of an unexplored system, or the dangers lurking in your own backyard, SES is here to ensure you and your employees safety. Based off of the planet Shiganshina in the Maria System, we are a locally owned an operated private security and exploration firm. We proudly boast the best 3D infantry in the entire sector, and are equipped with a full array of all-terrain transports, air-craft and autonomous vehicles. </p><p>We are also are in possession of the only fully functional titan in the entire sector, and have in our employ a capable pilot who is willing and eager to bring its full might to bear on anything that needs a swift and total annihilation. </p><p>Shiganshina Exploration and Security gets the job done, no matter what we have to do. </p><p>(Reasonable and legal exceptions do apply.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 001:54:12:09 - A Rescue for Lady Historia

**Author's Note:**

> Another fill for the SnK kink meme. This one was done in response to a prompt on the miscellaneous section which asked for a cyberpunk AU, which I promptly combined with another prompt for a giant mecha AU.
> 
> Special thanks to the original prompter whose enthusiastic support for this fill encouraged me to expand this from a mere two-part microfill to the multi-chaptered piece it is today.

Shiganshina Exploration and Security: one of the smaller mercenary outfits in the Maria system, owned a small office in the ruins of Shiganshina's capital city. It was located in the abandoned remains of an old military complex, which the merc company had claimed under the Abandoned Property Act, fixed up, and now used to house their men and machines.

The captial city had been nuked into rubble during The War and while it was slowly being rebuilt, you still needed to wear a radiation cowl whenever you went outside and an ATV to get anywhere outside the city center. To have someone visit their offices in person was a rare occasion.

Which is why Armin was so interested when his console had chimed, and the voice of his secretary announced that a Lady Historia was here to talk to him.

"Mr. Arlert," Historia had said as soon as she had come in the door. "I am interested in hiring your company to do some work for me. You come with high recommendations. They say you have one of the deadliest women on the planet as one of your senior officers."

Armin nodded, leaning back in his chair. "That's true. We may be a small company, but our troops are all highly trained and we have some of the best 3D infantry in the whole sector."

"It's said also that you do whatever it takes to get a job done," Historia leaned forward. "Tell me Mr. Arlert, is it true that you have a titan?"

\---

It was rare to find a working titan these days. During The War, those great war machines had been churned out by the millions by the manufacturing centers of Brackdur, Issell, Ypiru, and Chromiar. The widespread use of these machines had been the sole reason The War had been so devastating to the galaxy. A small squad of titans had been capable of completely annihilating a settled planet within a matter of hours.

Now of course, there was not a single place in the galaxy capable of building a titan. Brackdur was still trying to pull itself back together, Issell and Ypiru had both had their surfaces completely incinerated, and the last foundry on Chromiar had been blasted into slag near the end of The War. Most of the titans that had been produced had in turn been destroyed during the war's progression. While the pieces of them were everywhere, an intact working titan was nearly unheard of.

But that didn't mean that one didn't occasionally surface that had escaped destruction with the end of the war.

\---

SES was very tight lipped as to how exactly the had acquired their titan, but they restored one of the old repairing bays in their base and housed it there. It was here that Armin took Lady Historia.

"So it is true," Historia whispered as she gazed up at the fifteen meter mecha. It was humanoid in shape, with weapons sprouting from nearly every available surface. Its plating showed hard wear, but it had clearly been well looked after. A fresh coat of paint in the company colors decorated its shoulders and someone had even took the time to paint a set of straight white teeth on its face. "A Rogue class from the looks of it."

Armin nodded. "Exactly. Eren, our pilot, could level the capital within hours, if he had reason to."

The Rogue class of titans had been built as a purely offensive machine. While it had basic defensive systems and could move at a respectable speed, it was no match for the Armoured class or Dancer class in their respective areas. It made up for those shortcomings in range and pure firepower. The logic behind its design had been, that one would not have much to fear from an enemy that had been reduced to a pile of radioactive ash before it could even get within firing range.

Lady Historia nodded in understanding. "You've convinced me Mr. Arlert. A few days ago, there was an attempt to kidnap me by one of the outlaw gangs hiding out in the scrapwastes. It failed, but my bodyguard Ymir was captured in the process. From what I gathered, the outlaws have taken her back to their hideout and are now torturing her for information. I fear that they will kill her eventually, regardless of whether she tells them anything. I want you and your company to return her to me, alive and as unharmed as possible. I am willing to pay whatever you ask, and cover all extra expenses, on the condition that my bodyguard is returned to me alive. If she dies for whatever reason, I will not pay you a single sol."

Armin closed his eyes, engaged his neural implant, and did some quick calculations. He suddenly opened his eyes and turned to Historia.

"I believe we can do that. Twenty million sols, plus expenses, and we will return you bodyguard to you alive."

Historia held out her hand, her eyes hard with determination. "You have a deal."

\---

Eren Jeager was many things, but peaceful and well adjusted were not on the list. There were many in fact, who felt that it wasn't a wise move to leave the piloting of a fifteen meter war machine capable of destroying an entire planet, to a man with documented rage issues and who thought that "total annihilation" was still a viable war aim.

But, if Eren was at the bottom of the list of potential pilots, it was because he was the only one on it. The neural implants required to sync with a titan were as hard to find as the titans themselves, and if you had them, there was no guarantee anyone would survive the installation with their mental functions still intact. Even then, it was hit or miss as to whether the candidate would then be able to successfully sync with the titan.

Eren had done both, which left him as the only person in the entire Maria System which could pilot SES's titan.

Besides, no one could deny the fact that if you wanted anything wiped off the face of the galaxy, Eren was the best person for the job.

\---

Most imagined that titan pilots sat in chairs with their screens and control panels arrayed before them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead the pilots spent most of their time with their bodies completely encased in the neural receptors located in the base of the titan's neck, with information being displayed through the pilots personal HUD.

Your body was basically paralyzed from the neck down. But when he synced, it ceased to bother Eren. Every step the titan took, as it made its way across the decimated urban environment of scrapwastes, felt like his own. He could perceive his target ahead of him. An old industrial manufacturey and refining complex that the outlaws had turned into their fortified base of operations.

Normal policy was just to blast such a installation into slag and then move on to more important objectives. Something he couldn't do unfortunately, without slagging their primary objective along with it.

His HUD lit up as he subconsciously identified dozens of potential targets. A stray thought opened up his comm channel and he spoke. "Target is in range. Initialing light bombardment."

For a rouge titan, that basically meant every weapon that couldn't level a city in a single hit.

\---

"Everyone clear on the plan?" Jean spoke into his comm, as his squad made their way through the old transit tunnel. "Mikasa's squad is approaching the complex from the old freight lines. They will be both securing our evac zone, and creating a diversion. We're apporaching from the other side. Our goal is to get in, secure our objective, and get her to the evac zone alive. Remember, if she dies. We're not getting paid a thing."

The ground under their feet suddenly started to shake.

"Damn," Jean swore. "Looks like Eren's already started the bombardment. Let's go before the idiot accidentally blows our objective away."

The squad broke into a quick jog as they made their way down the transit tunnel. Finally, the tunnel opened up into a station, with an upper level walkway that overlooked the tracks. One of the outlaws was patrolling along the walkway, an assault rifle at the ready. He suddenly jerked, raised a hand to his ear comm, then bolted out of the room. Obviously Mikasa's squad had started their assault.

"Right," Jean hissed. "Anti-grav on. Lets roll."

There was the jarring feeling of weightlessness as his 3DMG's anti-gravity generator kicked in. He fired a line into the ceiling above the second level, and then he was flying through the air, his squad behind him.

\---

According to a popular net legend, which had been made into a media series, three dimensional maneuvering gear had been developed on one of Saturn's moons, in order to aid the colonists in fighting a race of man-eating giants.

In truth the gear had originally been invented to solve the problem of working in the weightless environment of deep space, and was still heavily used into civilian sector for any job that took someone into a weightless environment.

Nearly three hundred years ago however, someone had gotten the bright idea to take a normal set of 3DMG, attach an anti-grav generator to it, and make it so any idiot could launch themselves around a room like they were a helium balloon tied to a particularly excited puppy. The new 3DMG saw its first use in the area of extreme sports, before armed forces across the galaxy started taking note of the new dimension 3DMG added to tactical combat.

3D infantry had been born.

\---

Jean's squad made rapid progress through the complex. Most of the outlaws had been draw away to deal with Mikasa's squad, and those that had remained were not expecting a 3D assault from behind.

Jean crouched behind and massive support beam on the ceiling, as a barrage of light fire pinged off the metal. The anti-grav on 3D gear meant that every surface could be utilized, and that inevitably threw many people off guard. There was a burst of automatic fire from Connie, hidden behind a burnt out neon sign, and the outlaw dropped.

"Right, forward!" Jean snapped. The squad leapt from cover, half covering the ceiling, the other half covering the floor and walls. Reiner fired a line into the wall, the cable yanking him into new cover right by the stairwell.

He glanced down the stairs, raised a hand and signaled to the rest of the squad. They were clear.

\---

The outlaws had been keeping Ymir locked in an old janitor's closet with her hands behind her back. The surprised guard never even had time to grab his gun before Jean blasted into the hallway, his rifle at full auto. Connie's autohacker made quick work of the old magnetic lock and the door was open in a second.

Ymir looked pretty good for someone who had apparently been tortured. But Jean knew that didn't mean anything. He knew that if you made a few very illegal modifications to a common nerve stimulator, (The kind that could be bought in any sex shop in the Maria system.) you had a very nasty torture device that didn't leave physical marks.

Marco, the squad's medical officer, was by Ymir's side in a second, his medical scanner running a diagnosis. "It's her," he confirmed. "No immediate physical injuries either.

"Who the fuck are you?" Ymir hissed, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Shiganshina Exploration and Security," Jean explained. He activated his industrial omnitool and sheared the bindings off Ymir's wrist. "Lady Historia is paying us to rescue you."

Ymir let out a laugh of shock. "Goddamnit," she chocked. "Goddamnit. I should have known..." She accepted the radiation cowl and pistol Marco handed to her. She quickly threw the cowl on, and gripped the pistol tightly. "What's the plan?" She braced herself as the building gave a sudden jolt. "Goddamnit! You've got a titan shelling this place or something!?"

Connie let out a laugh. "Bingo!"

\---

It was easy enough to find their way to the evac zone. They just had to follow the bodies. Mikasa was focused and ruthless whenever she was on a mission. She and her squad had gunned down every outlaw they had come across, leaving the way to one of the outside landing pads clear. Getting Ymir through the complex had been quick and easy.

Outside was a different story. It was literally raining ordinance. Artillery shells were falling like rain drops, the sky was streaked with the chem trails of countless missiles, sonic detonators made anything that was under the least stress shatter like glass, lasers burned their way across the ground, melting steel and igniting anything flammable, sharidier anti-personnel rounds burst apart in mid-air, sending a deadly rain of disks ricocheting off every surface. The nanofactory on-board the titan meant that Eren could keep firing until the titan's fusion generator burned out. (Which would happen in about ten thousand years, give or take)

Jean's squad booted it across the landing pad, Ymir in the middle of them. An armored troop carrier in SES colors had landed, and Mikasa's squad was standing guard around it.

"Get in the goddamned carrier!" Jean commanded. "Who knows how long before Eren accidently blows this place off the map!"

He wasn't unjustified in his words. While Eren did know where the evac zone was, and had avoided hitting it, rouge titans were not well known for avoiding collateral damage, or friendly fire incidences.

The troops bolted up the boarding ramp, cramming Ymir into a seat directly behind the cockpit. The loading doors closed and the carrier took off. The sky outside began to blur by as the aircraft booked it away from the combat zone.

"Eren, we're clear. Slag the place." the person in the co-pilot's chair spoke into the comm.

He had barely closed the call, before the entire complex disappeared in a gigantic pillar of fire which reached up passed even the tallest clouds, obliterating the complex and everything within a fifty kilometer radius. The shockwave buffeted the carrier, causing Sasha to spill chips over everyone, but doing no damage.

"Fuck," Ymir hissed. "A clean fusion nuke! You really do have a titan."

The co-pilots chair tuned around to reveal Armin leaning back in it. "Compliments of Lady Historia," he explained. "I don't know what you are to her, but she was willing to pay twenty million sols to get you back."

Ymir let out a choked laugh. "Goddamn that woman. Goddamnit..." She let out a long breath of relief. "So, where you dropping me off? Capital hospital?"

Armin smiled. "Lady Historia requested that we drop you off right at her door. So that's what we are going to do. We cannot afford to have anything happen to you if we dropped you off somewhere else. Shiganshina Exploration and Security gets the job done, no matter what we have to do."


	2. 002:34:06:12 - Buried Treasure

Shiganshina Exploration and Security had been founded by Armin Arlert, Mikasa Ackerman, and Eren Jeager nearly five years after the last peace treaty was sealed, and The War was officially over.

All three of them had survived the nuking of Shiganshina's capital, had fought as 3D infantry in the Rose Confederacy's Recon Legion, and had somehow come out of every battle alive by the time The War was over.

The titan had been with SES for as long as it had existed. No one but the three of them knew where it had come from. However the number of so-called "black files" in their record suggested that it was quiet the story.

Most of SES's soldiers had been drawn from the three's old trainee group, and the division they had later served in, a few were drawn from a group of POW's who had been released with the onset of peace, and some had just showed up at the office on day and asked if they could sign up.

Somehow, that motley group had managed to shape itself into one of the best mercenary companies in the entire system.

Having the only intact titan in the whole sector certainly didn't hurt.

\---

Armin relaxed in his desk chair, a cup of warm Cirikati tea in one hand and the company's end of the year report open before him.

It has been a quiet year, but a profitable one. The rescue job for Lady Historia had been the single most exciting job that had happened all year. Aside from that their had been a temporary security detail for the Shiganshina Council, a job escorting a cargo of rare sunstones across half the planet, a scouting mission to an neighboring uninhabited system, and a bounty job, during which their target had surrendered the moment the carryall bringing in Eren had appeared on their sensors.

Each of the jobs have paid well, the books were in the green, and the casualty lists had remained empty. A good year for any company.

His console suddenly let out a chime. "Mr. Arlert. Lady Historia has just arrived to speak with you."

Lady Historia? As far as he had heard, the most exciting thing that had happened with her was the work her company had been doing in restoring an old habitation complex on the Southwest Continent. What would she be needing a mercenary company for? Interesting...

He opened the door, and Lady Historia entered the room, Ymir standing at her right shoulder. The woman was looking much better since her rescue, a new armored uniform, complete with a shotgun holstered at the small of her back and a pair of pistols at her hips, had done a lot in restoring her.

"Mr Arlert," Lady Historia began, "I would like to hire the services of your company once again. Your entire company."

Armin nodded. "You can certainly do that. We're between jobs at the moment so all our resources are at your disposal. For the right price of course."

"Of course," Historia agreed. "You are no doubt aware of the work my company is doing on the Southwest Continent? Something has... come up. I want your company's aid in completely locking down and securing the site. I will pay you five million sols up front, an additional five million for every week you and your troops are there, plus an additional hundred million sols upon completion of the job. I'll toss in an bonus of ten million sols if you and your men can be mobilized immediately. Right now. I will explain further when you are at the site."

Armin blinked. "Now? As in right this moment?" At Historia's nod, activated his console. "Eren. We've got a job. Get synced and ready for transport to the Southwest Continent. Mikasa, get everyone mobilized. I want everything ready to go within the hour, all the troops, all the aircraft, and all the ground vehicles. Tell everyone they'll all get a bonus if we're in the sky before the hour is past."

\---

"So," Armin leaned back into the co-pilot's chair as Shinganshina's ocean rushed by below them. "Care to elaborate Lady Historia? I trust this is nothing like a virus, or a toxic waste disaster?"

"No," Lady Historia shook her head. "Nothing like that. We were doing further subsurface sweeps of the construction site to check for potential hazards. After what happened is Sirthgard, you can't be too careful."

Armin nodded. A construction crew replacing a sewer line in one of the reclaimed settlements had accidentally detonated a buried fission nuke, which no one had realized was there. The crew, along with the entire settlement, had been blown away and the entire area re-irradiated.

"I take it you found something?"

"Yes. A series of buried bunkers built below the original foundations. They didn't appear on any plans or blueprints, so we decided to open them up to see what they contained. The first ones we opened contained mostly military supplies for surviving a long term bombardment, a few had arms and vehicles, and the one we opened today... well... I think it's better that I show you."

\---

The carrier set down just outside of the construction site. As Armin, Ymir and Lady Historia exited, they were promptly greeted by a red faced accountant.

"Lady Historia," he blustered. "I must protest. We do not need these mercenaries to help us secure the site! The cost alone of hiring them is astronomical! I fail to see what they could bring that would justify this outrageous expense! Just because they..."

The carryall bringing Eren chose that moment to let down its cargo. The titan hit the ground just meters from the startled accountant. Without wasting a second, the titan began to move, shaking the ground with each step as it set off to find a good firing position.

The accountant gaped in shock.

"That," Lady Historia explained. "Is what they bring to justify their expense."

More carriers and carryalls were landing now. Armin could hear the voices of Mikasa and Jean on the comm as they directed the disembarking troops. Autonomous vehicles were stiring up giant clouds of dust as patrol scripts kicked in, and a pair of gunships were already circling above.

Historia motioned towards a nearby ATV, of which Ymir was already climbing behind the controls. "If you will come with me Mr. Arlert. I will show you want we found."

Armin climbed into the vehicle, leaving the disembarkment to those who knew better, and was taken away down an excavated tunnel.

"You found no access tunnel?" Armin questioned, as the ATV went deeper and deeper through the rough cut tunnel.

"We think there was once one," Historia explained. "But it was sealed when the main building collapsed in on itself. We have to re-vitrify the foundation anyway, so it was simply easier to dig new access tunnels.

The ATV took them through a crudely cut hole in the side of a metal wall, and into what appeared to be a large vehicle bay.

What Armin saw took his breath away.

It was seven meters tall, looking as it had just come fresh from the foundries. Aerial maneuvering fins curved out from the back and limbs, and a massive ion propulsion engine was mounted to the back.

"A titan," Armin hissed. "A dancer class titan!"


	3. 003:23:09:24 - A Day of Rememberance

Every colony, with the obvious exception of Terra, always celebrating their founding day. The day when the first colony was settled on the planet.

By tradition, SES always gave its troops the week of Founding Day off. (Unless of course they were in the middle of a job, in which case they got it the moment they got back.) Most of the troops usually went on short vacations, visited family, or simply vanished into the depths of Shinganshina's red light district.

Jean and Marco would be on the first freighter to the Trost System, on their way to visit family. Sasha was infamous for her regular attendance of Shiganshina's Pangalatic Food Festival, and feared by all the buffets there. Connie visited his family in a small mining community in the Northern Mountains, which had escaped notice during The War due to its remoteness and small size. Franz and Hanna would rent an expensive hotel room on the edge of the red light district and would not been seen by a singe soul until the week was out. Annie, Bertholdt and Reiner would wander about the capital, sharing drinks in a small bar on the edge of the reconstruction zone, and finding various things to keep themselves amused.

For Armin, Eren, and Mikasa however, they had their own traditions. First they would visit the small memorial, tucked away in a garden by the council building, and leave flowers for the family they had lost in The War. That would be followed by a quick double check, to make sure nothing at HQ had blown up in the meanwhile. Then they would swing by the nearest distillery, buy enough booze to kill an elephant, and get roaring drunk back at HQ, toasting to the comrades they had lost during their many battles. That would then be followed by another double check to make sure they hadn't blown anything up.

Once they had laid the ghosts of their past to rest, there was one more thing they did.

\---

Armin set the aircar, baring SES's company logo, onto the landing pad of the Shiganshina Educational Center, a combined school, library, and research laboratory. He noted with satisfaction that the car Eren and Mikasa had taken was already parked in a nearby slot.

He walked through the doors to the main lobby, noting the brass plaque which thanked Shiganshina Exploration and Security for its generous contribution to the restoration of the center. (An expense Armin had taken out of the company's PR budget.) An elevator took him down several floors to one of the garden reading areas. There, Eren and Mikasa were waiting for him, an intergalactic travel guide spread out across the table, along with a copious amount of notes and figures.

"Its nice to know some things never change," Armin though as he greeted his two friends. If his figures held up, they would be able to retire rich in as little as a decade.

Then there wouldn't be a place in the galaxy that would be beyond their reach.

\---

Annie, Bertholdt, and Reiner sat at their table at the bar, nursing their drinks, and paying only half attention to the blitz game on the screen.

Many at SES wondered why the three former POWs hadn't simply booked passage to the Shifting System the moment they had the money, like many of the other released POWs had done.

In truth that had originally been the plan. But, the work at SES had been familiar to them, and once they had gotten to know their comrades, going back home had seemed less and less appealing.

On the days when they were honest with themselves however, they would admit that there wasn't really anything at home to go back to.

At the peak of The War, the Shifting System Alliance had gotten tired of loosing its best minds and veteran soldiers to the hazards of the neural implanting necessary to pilot a titan. The human brain is a complex thing, and even the simplest implants carry some risk in their installation. Titan implants in particular were infamous for their complexity, and the high risk of complications and death that went with them.

So, the Alliance had changed their strategy.

Each of them remembered the day when the Alliance representative had come to their homes and told their parents that their son or daughter had passed the aptitude test and had been accepted into the Alliance Titan Corp. That had been followed with the standard speech, which said that while your child was only ten, every person was needed for the war effort. Of course they would be well cared for, feed, educated, and housed. They would be heroes, honored veterans, and absolutely vital to winning the war. It would then be followed by some bullshit about young children being able to sync with the titans easier. (A total lie as they knew now.)

For whatever reason, their parents had agreed, and they had gone off with the representative to become titan pilots. Of their group, they had been among the number which had survived the implantation and all the hazards that went with it.

Reiner's own brother had come out of surgery a gibbering mess, and had died a week later from complications. Reiner himself still suffered dissociative episodes as a direct result of his implanting.

But of all of the children that had been rounded up, they had survived and had gone on to successfully sync with their titans. A year of training and they had been sent off to the Maria system, to aid the Alliance's offensive against the Rose Confederacy.

They had been captured near the end of the war. They had been laying over at a depot, on their way to a forward base to meet up with the carryalls bringing in their titans. The depot had come under assault from Confederation forces and the commanding officer of the depot, tired of the war and just wanting to go home, had surrendered without question. At the end of The War, they had simply been released by local officials who didn't know what to do with them, and who didn't want to pay to send them back to the Shifting system. SES had approached them with a job offer, and the rest was history.

Except there was a problem. Three of them to be precise.

The carryalls bringing in their titans had dropped them off at a secret staging ground on a rocky island in the middle of Shiganshina's ocean. When the Shifting System Alliance had collapsed, along with the Rose Confederacy, the staging ground had been camouflaged and abandoned.

As far as the three of them knew, the staging ground was still unknown and untouched, their three working titans along with it.

It would be a simple matter to simply tell Armin about the base, and then they could be pilots again, and SES could rule the entire system if it wanted to. Except that would mean telling Armin other things.

Like the fact that Bertholdt was piloting the colossus class which nuked Shiganshina's capital, from which Armin and his friends lost most of their family. That Reiner piloted the armored class which time and time again broke through the Confederacy's defensive lines, causing the Confederacy to evacuate the planet and abandon the system. That Annie piloted the queen class which single handily massacred the Recon Legion in the forest of giants, during the Confederacy's first failed attempt to retake the Maria system.

Armin knew they fought for the Alliance, and he had been willing to overlook that. Would he forgive them if he knew just what they had been responsible for?

Every Founding Day, the three of them sat at the bar and pondered the question. Every year, three titans sat at an abandoned staging ground, waiting for their pilots who never showed up.


	4. 004:72:03:24 - Appropriate Uses of Nuclear Weapons

In the century preceding The War, a company going by the name of Rapidform Ltd. emerged onto the galactic stage. They claimed that through the use of extremophile microorganisms and rapid growing plants, they could rapidly terraform a planet, and have it habitable by humans in less than a decade.

Terraforming experts from across the galaxy all ran the figures and countered back that such a plan would result in an unstable ecosystem which would not be able to support even the smallest amount of human exploitation, and which would likely suffer a major ecological collapse after only a century.

But that didn't stop private investors from investing billions of sols in Rapidform's flagship project: the planet Kynthirne.

At first, the project appeared to be an astounding success. In mere years, sprawling jungles were covering Kynthirne's surface, the air was breathable, and rivers of pure clean water were flowing. The first colonists landed with much celebration and high hopes.

It was then discovered that the experts had been right, at least partially. The new ecosystem of Kynthirne was unsuited to any attempts at sustained human exploitation. The new soil was often depleted before the first crop could even be brought in, the few wild animals were too few in number to be profitably exploited, and the rapid growing vegetation had to be constantly burnt back, otherwise it would overwhelm nearly any type of development.

When investors, looking for answers, started knocking on Rapidform's door, they were quick to discover that the company's entire circle of executives had taken every remaining penny, and booked it out of the sector. (Those executives would later discover that while they could outrun galactic law enforcement, they couldn't outrun the wrath of their former investors. Particularly the head of the Sinannese Mafia)

The colony at Kynthirne was abandoned in short order, and aside from a small Alliance base which had been established during The War, the whole planet was left to go feral on its own.

\---

However, it turned out that the experts had been only half right. While it was true that the ecosystem could not support any major human exploitation, it had not collapsed within the expected century. Instead, it had actually stabilized. The sprawling jungles, instead of overgrowing and dying off, had instead somehow managed to reach a sustainable equilibrium and continued to thrive.

A commercial disaster, but a scientific wonder. So much so, that three major galactic universities had banded together to launch a long term study of Kynthirne's ecosystem. The funding was already together, all that was left was the preliminary assessment.

That's where SES came in.

It was common practice to hire an exploration company to scout out a planet before any of your own personnel or equipment actually landed. The idea being that an exploration company would have a better idea what it was doing, and would be able to report and deal with any nasty surprises lurking on the planet, before your own crew stumbled into them unknowingly.

SES did hundreds of these missions, and they were usually straightforward. Land, map the place, do some basic scans, and make sure there was no outlaw bases or undetonated ordinance lurking about.

Simple.

\---

Eren's swearing filled the comm channels.

To say the jungle was practically unnavigable, would be a gross understatement. Even the smallest tree towered out at over fifty meters, and bewildering variety of vines and creepers filled every space between the tree tops and the dense understory. Everyone was struggling to keep from becoming tangled in the thick vegetation, and they were in gunships.

Eren's titan was ground based, and it was having a constant struggle to keep from being bogged down by the thick undergrowth. Anti-personnel weapons, lasers, everything in Eren's light arsenal that would work was being used to push back the vegetation.

"Oh cut it out Jeager," Jean finally spoke through the comm. "We're not having any better time than you are."

Eren's reply could have gotten him executed in the Gasperian System.

"Look, you know as well as I do that we have a job, and we've got to do it. This jungle isn't going away any time soon."

The titan suddenly froze.

"We'll see about that."

The long range launcher on the right arm began to unfold.

"EREN!" Armin's worried voice came on the comm. "What are you...?"

A missile burned a hole in the canopy as it streaked towards the sky.

Ahead of them, over a thousand square kilometers of jungle burnt up in a pillar of nuclear fire.

\---

"YOU GODDAMN CRAZY MANIAC!" Jean was screaming into the comm. "WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE MAPPING THIS PLACE, NOT BLOWING IT AWAY! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED US ALL!"

Eren's clean nuke had incinerated a gigantic portion of jungle, leaving behind a huge clearing of burnt ash. The gunships had moved into the clearing and spread out, Eren followed on the ground, no longer being encumbered by the thick undergrowth.

"I DON'T KNOW WHO'S IDEA IT WAS TO LET YOU PILOT THAT GODDAMN THING, BUT IF I EVER FIND THEM...!"

"Jean," Mikasa's voice was hard and professional. "Shut up. Connie, you're on the sensors, are you picking up something up ahead."

"Yeah," Connie replied. "Now that all that vegetation is out of the way, we're starting to get clear signals. It's a bunker from the looks of it, I'm not picking up any power signatures or IFF readings."

"I think it's an old Alliance installment," Reiner suddenly spoke, he sounded faintly nervous. "They had a base here once, maybe this was part of it."

There was silence on the comm for several long moments.

"Set down outside," Armin finally ordered. "Connie, get your autohacker out. Sasha, stand by with industrial cutters and blasting charges in case Connie's autohacker doesn't cut it. Be careful, we don't know if the Alliance left any surprises inside."

\---

"So it's definitely Alliance?" Armin asked, after the teams had hacked the door lock and gotten inside. 

"Definitely," Connie confirmed. "Looks like it was abandoned after The War, didn't even change any of the codes. Reiner's old security clearance was able to get us through a few of the doors, and the autohacker took care of the rest."

"No problems?"

"Pfh..." Connie snorted. "These codes haven't been updated in years. The cypher key to all the Alliance codes was posted on the net bout five years after The War. A teenager with an omnitool could hack these now. But I didn't even get to the best part. We think this may have been an intelligence post. Where all the brass sat back and tried to figure out what has going on in the sector. We even found the main servers still intact! They didn't even bother to EMP all the data!"

"What? You sure?"

"Oh I'm sure," Connie grinned. "It's a way to much for the autohacker to decrypt, but I've jacked all the disks, you can decrypt them at your leisure back at HQ."

"What disks?" Armin asked blankly. "It had all been EMP-ed when you found it right?"

"Yup," Connie nodded seriously, a gesture contrasted by the grin on his face. "Completely wiped. We found nothing interesting here. Got it boss."

\---

The rest of the job had gone without incident. While their clients hadn't been too happy about Eren blasting away a chunk of the jungle they were supposed to be studying, they had bought Armin's story about the bunker's energy signature registering as a major threat on Eren's sensors.

Of course, they did not need to know about the disks of Alliance Intel currently sitting in Armin's office. 

\---

"They called you too?" Bertholdt asked nerveously as Annie stepped into the waiting room of Armin's office. Reiner also shifted nervously beside him.

The boss had just gotten his hands on a cache of old Alliance intelligence, and he suddenly summons them to his office. It was worrying to say the least.

The secretary looked up from his screen. "You're all here? Good, Mr. Arlert said to send you all in when you all arrived." He pressed a button and the door slid open.

The three of them filled into the room, and what they saw didn't help their worry.

Armin was seated at his desk, his attention apparently directed at whatever was on his screen. Eren was seated in a corner, the look on his face suggested he was conflicted over whether or not he wanted to stab them or strangle them. Mikasa was leaning up against the wall, her face betraying nothing.

"So," Armin said at last, turning to look at them. "Don't worry, you're not in trouble. However..." He reached up and twisted the screen around to face them.

What they saw made their hearts freeze. The words "Shifting System Alliance Titan Corp." were displayed across the top, along with a perfect, if outdated, picture of Bertholdt's face. They couldn't read the text from where they were standing, but they already knew what it said.

Their Alliance records. If Armin had Bertholdt's he likely had Annie and Reiner's as well.

Armin steepled his hands and leaned forward. "I think there's some things we need to clear up between us."


	5. 005:34:01:23 - Familial Connections

It was said that in the Sina System, it was hard to tell where the legitimate government ended, and the Sinanesse Mafia began. That half the government was up to their elbows in organized crime was taken for granted there. Even worse, the lines between criminal enterprise and legitimate venture were so blurry, thanks to over a century of a combination aristocratic rule, entrenched corruption, and legitimized illegality.

Historia Reiss had been born into one of the Sina System's most respected aristocratic families, which also happened to be one of the key players in the Sinanesse Mafia.

When Historia had been sixteen, she scrapped together her savings and booked passage out of the system under an assumed name.

She had barely scrapped by at first, and likely would have ended up facedown in some underslum's recycling vats if she had not met Ymir. Somehow the both of them had made it through The War alive, and when the smoke had cleared, Historia saw opportunity.

The War had devastated the galaxy, and it would not be an understatement to say that at over three quarters of it had been blasted into rubble. With the cessation of fighting, planetary governments were putting their energy into getting their planets put back together, whatever way they could. They would either pay companies big money to do reconstruction work, or give them the rights to any damaged site, so long as they would get everything running again.

While she had been loathed to have anything to do with her family, an eccentric uncle had agreed to loan her a large sum of money to get everything started.

The Maria system had been a good place to base herself. Not only had her company thrived, but she had paid back her uncle in full, plus interest. As far as she was concerned, she had severed her last remaining tie with her family. They were nothing to her now.

Unfortunately, her family didn't entirely see it that way, especially not when she was now running a very profitable restoration company.

\---

It was shaping up to be a lovely morning. The red glow of Shiganshina's sunrise shone through the window, casting the whole room in a warm pink light. It brought a smile to Hisotria's face as she lay in bed. Beside her, Ymir muttered something in her sleep, and tossed over to press against Historia's side. Her smile warmed as she snuggled closer to her lover.

An anti-personnel rocket slammed into the window with a bang and a burst of shrapnel-laced fire. Reflex had both Ymir and Historia rolling out of bed and onto the floor. Ymir already had the pistol she stashed under the pillow in her hand, and Historia had assumed a crouched over position, with her hands over the back of her neck.

Thankfully the rocket had not penetrated the window. Growing up in a family as stepped in organized crime as her's was, had instilled a deep sense of guardedness into Historia. The entire house was built of military grade materials, and all the windows were ordinance resistant. That would only do so much however. Already they could hear the sounds of automatic gunfire from elsewhere in the residence, and there was what sounded like artillery shells hitting the house.

Ymir pressed her hand into Historia's back, and carefully, crouching down to keep a low profile, they crept across the room towards the concealed elevator at the other side of the room. Historia pressed her hand to the hidden panel, and concealed elevators door slid open. They darted inside, and the shielded doors closed in front of them, just as another rocket slammed into the window.

There was silence as the elevator silently took them down into the lowest level of Historia's residence. The moment the doors were open, Ymir quickly guided Historia into the armored and shielded safe room, and sealed the blast doors shut.

Then she was off, running down the catwalks that cross-crossed the massive repair bay that had been built into the residences basement. It was here that they had stored the dancer class titan they had recovered from the ruin of the old habitation complex.

Pausing only to grab a syncing helmet from a nearby rack, Ymir climbed up to the open cockpit at the base of the titan's neck. She could feel the implants beneath her skin activate as she climbed into the neural receptor. There was a strange feeling of disconnection as she synced with the titan, and then it was gone.

The ion engine on the back fired up, and the repair bay doors began to open.

\---

Ymir had never had military training. She had never been part of any military. What she did have, was a set of stolen implants and a sleezy doctor that didn't give a rats ass who was paying him to do what, so long as he got paid. There were still people who would give their lungs to get their hands on her, for her part in the theft of a dancer class titan from an Alliance facility. One of her finest, if particularly short lived heists. She had ended up crashing the titan near a backwater settlement in the Uthgart system. What she had found in that backwater however, had been worth far more than any titan.

The men outside never knew what hit them. The dancer class was designed for speed, on the logic that the best defense was not to get hit at all, and that the best offense was one which the enemy would not be able to react to in time. One of the only titans with aerial and FTL capabilities, it was known as a pain in the ass, for its ability to strike hard and quick, and get out before a proper response could be mounted.

Controlled bursts of anti-personnel fire was all that was needed to clear the front gardens. A snipers nest hiding out in an abandoned building was suddenly blown away by a single high explosive rocket. The wise ass with the rocket launcher, only had time to fire a wild shot with his launcher (Which missed by a mile) before Ymir raked his position with a quick swipe from a particle laser.

That left only the artillery which was shelling the house. They were hiding out in the remains of an old commercial plaza over sixty kilometers away.

Ymir closed the distance in seconds.

She would savor the look on their faces for years to come.

\---

"I heard about the attack," Armin said, leaning back in his chair. "You're sure it was the Sinanesse Mafia? Looked more like an outlaw strike. It's not like military grade weapons are exactly hard to get here."

That was true. The vicious fighting on Shiganshina, and the fallout from the twin collapse of the Rose Confederacy and the Shifting System Alliance, meant that the whole planet was covered with abandoned military installations and hidden supply caches. Any idiot with some excavation equipment and enough patience could scrape together enough military grade equipment to supply a small army. While all the easy sites were slowly being depleted, and the Shiganshina Council were making a concerned effort to nail down all the loose ordinance floating about, getting your hands on deadly weapons was still far easier than any decent person would like.

"I'm sure," Historia confirmed. "The equipment my attackers were using was not local salvage. Nearly all of it was manufactured in the Sina System, by companies with certain criminal connections. More to the point, I got a message from an uncle of mine saying, in effect, I should be on the look out because the rest of the family was up to something involving me. A little late, but apperecated all the same."

"So," Armin tapped his console. "What exactly do you wish to hire Shiganshina Exploration and Security for? Your personal protection is certainly more than enough to protect your from anything short of a planetary invasion force."

"No, not for me," Historia clarified. "For my employees. I am concerned that with this failed attack, the Sinanesse Mafia will start looking for other targets. I want to be able to insure all those under my employ do not have to worry about the fallout from my unfortunate familial connections."

Armin nodded to himself. "I believe we can do that. As for payment," he cracked his neck. "I wish to propose a trade of sorts. You no doubt know we recently acquired some new "equipment." At the moment we do not have the facilities to house some of the larger pieces. What I propose is that my company provides protection to your employees, in turn I would like your company to construct new facilities at this base for the storage and maintenance of this "equipment." What do you say?"

Historia gave a casual glance at the gigantic, sixty meter, form of the colossus class titan sitting outside.

"We can do that. You have a deal Mr. Arlert."

\---

When the Rose Confederacy had collapsed, the planetary government of Trost, knowing how unpopular they were with the local people, had helped themselves to the treasury and booked it out of the system on private ships. The resulting power vacuum saw nearly every radical group on the planet crawl out of the underworks and make a bid for power. Within days the entire planet was engulfed in a massive multi-sided civil war. It was then that the remnants of the Confederacy Military which remained on the planet reorganized themselves and launched a bloody campaign to put down the fighting groups and stabilize the political situation. By the time the smoke had cleared, a trio of former Confederacy generals had become the new government of the Trost System.

In truth, most of the population preferred military rule to the raging anarchy that had engulfed the planet, and to be fair General Dot Pixis had put forth a plan for a peaceful transition to civilian rule. That plan of course would take a few decades to complete, and no one doubted that by the time it was done, people like General Niles Dawk and General Erwin Smith would come out better off than they came into it.

\---

Erwin drummed the fingers of his mechanical arm on the surface of his desk, as he waited for Levi to give the report on his little trip to the Maria System. The metal digits made a slight pinging sound as they hit the polished surface of the wood, and a part of him knew that Levi would be irked beyond belief at the marks they left in the varnish.

"So Levi, what's this I hear about new titans being unearthed on Shiganshina?" Erwin asked.

Levi let out a growl. "Three of them," he confirmed. "You remember Jeager? That brat that used to be in the Legion? Turns out him and his friends started this mercenary company. Last week they went out on a salvage expedition and removed three fully functioning titans from the remains of an Alliance military base. An armored class, a colossus class, and a queen class. That makes five titans in this sector alone, all of them on Shiganshina. All of them have pilots too."

Erwin frowned. "Five?"

Levi snorted. "Jeager still has that rouge class. A restoration and reconstruction company unearthed a Dancer class last year, and add in the three Jeager's friends removed from the military base, we have five."

"And what is the Shiganshina Council doing about it?" Erwin inquired. "I doubt they're happy about a private mercenary company having that much firepower."

Another snort. "They're scared shitless. They're afraid that if they do anything to piss them off, SES will simply nuke the council buildings back to slag again and replace them. What's worse, its started some kind of gold rush over there. People are cracking open all these old military installments hoping that they'll find more intact titans, and either be able to sell them for billions or make themselves king over the planet. No ones found anything yet, but apparently its flooded the market with cheap weapons, and the Shiganshina Council is walking on eggshells trying to make sure no one is going to actually unearth any WMG stashes or more working titans."

Erwin frowned. "It does raise an issue however. There are still military bases here that have been siting abandoned since The War ended, and we don't know what's in them." He drummed his fingers on the table again. "We should do something about that. See if you and Hanji can get round up just how many such installations still exist on the planet. I'm going to arrange to meet with Pixis and Dawk, we should see about salvaging these installations ourselves. At the very least we secure a bunch of unregulated weapons, and who knows." the general smiled to himself. "We might find ourselves our own titan."


	6. 006:65:23:13 - Cheaper than Food

"Well, it's official," Armin lowered his dataslate and peered out at the breakfast table at large. "It's now cheaper to arm your family than it is to feed them."

Eren briefly looked up from his breakfast and snorted. "Fuck, there goes the planet."

The recent scavenging rush had flooded Shiganshina's markets with an unbelievable glut of cheap weapons. Arms dealers had watched in horror as the price of all types of weapons and ammunition had plummeted like a stone. It was now cheaper to buy a rifle and twelve dozen ammo cartridges, than it was to buy a cheap meal at a fast food joint.

From a purely economic perspective, this was great news for Shiganshina Exploration and Security. Already that had snapped up as much cheap munitions as they could get their hands on. They had even paid to restore two of their bases old warehouses, just so they would have enough space to store it all. In addition business was booming, as more and more people were looking for protection services, or someone willing to brave the scrapwastes to rescue a kidnapped loved one.

From a social perspective however, things were going to hell. Violent crime had skyrocketed across the planet. With guns now cheaper than food, the desperate and underprivileged were more and more resorting to violence in order to make ends meet. No one was leaving their home without a gun at their side, and tensions were running high. There had already been two major shootouts, both of them started by someone shooting at shadows, everyone else assuming something was going down, grabbing their guns, and shooting at anything looking remotely threatening. (Which was basically everyone these days)

To make matters worse, the outlaw population on the planet had exploded. The sudden influx of cheap munitions, meant that gangs could arm themselves with armored vehicles, aircraft, and heavy ordinance with next to no effort and expense. New bands were emerging practically overnight.

SES had even had their base attacked by outlaws looking to steal their titans, twice!

The first time, the attackers had been quickly dispatched by Annie and her queen class titan.

The second time, Eren had blown them off the map before they had even got within firing range.

Armin had no idea how exactly the idiots in question thought they were going to steal the titans, especially since the people they were trying to rob were actively using them. But, they had tried, and that was more than could be said of the outlaws two months ago.

The Shiganshina council in turn, was willing to offer payment to anyone who turned in weapons and military equipment into them to be either resold to responsible buyers, or recycled. In addition they had stepped up regulations for the owning and operating of military grade equipment.

Too little, too late.

There were simply too many arms floating about for the new regulations to do much good. Maybe when the supply had dwindled, and any idiot with a shovel couldn't dig them up.

Armin in turn had already submitted applications to have all SES's military equipment legalized. He wasn't too worried, he knew damn well that the government was too scared of them to refuse his request to license four fully functional titans.

\---

Armin was at his desk, snacking on a pile of sweet-crackers, when his console chimed. He brought up the message from the Shiganshina Council, and his face went pale.

"Mikasa!" he snapped, activating the comm. "I need everyone mobilized at once! Get our anti-missile batteries ready to roll as well! Eren, I need you, Annie, and Reiner synced up and ready for transport. I want Bertholdt on standby in case things go pear-shaped, but we don't have enough time to mobilize the colossus." He paused and took a few deep breaths. "I just got word from the Shiganshina Council. An outlaw group has apparently found themselves a stash of nuclear WMDs. While they apparently don't have any means of activating or delivering them, but that could change at any moment. Our job is to get over there, secure the WMDs by any means necessary, and hopefully do it without re-irradiating the whole region. We need to be in the air before the hour is up."


	7. 007:24:29:31 - Keep Out of Reach of Children and Outlaws

The twin collapse of the Rose Confederacy and the Shifting System Alliance was topic that was still heavily debated by the galaxy at large. While over a hundred different factors played a role in the demise of the two, no one could agree on just what broke the backs of what was once the galaxy's two biggest powers.

What cannot be denied however, was that the collapse was sudden, and left the remnants in a scattered mess. One day the two powers were going strong, the next they simply ceased to exist. Their governments' dissolved overnight and the remnants were left to make it as best they could. In many cases, military units, suddenly finding that the cause they were fighting for was no more, simply abandoned their posts and started over. Thousands of planets were littered with abandoned military installations, left to rot because there was no one around who actually cared enough to properly evacuated them.

It was because of that attitude, that the whole mess Shiganshina Exploration and Security was involved in now, was even happening.

\---

Whomever had been in charge of that old launch site had clearly not cared about what would happen to the stash of nuclear weapons they were in charge of, once they were gone. So over a hundred tons of planet-destroying weapons had sat there in storage since the end of The War, waiting to be found.

Unfortunately, that had not been by anyone with any sense of responsibility or self preservation. The outlaws of Shiganshina were long used to scavenging their equipment from abandoned military facilities, so it was not unusual for this particular group to blast their way into an old complex looking for weapons. Unfortunately, the weapons they found this time were of a scale much larger than they were used to.

Thankfully the leader of this band had been a particularly ambitious and dim-witted sort. The moment he learned of the weapons, he sent a message straight to the Shiganshina Council, threatening nuclear annihilation unless he was made unquestioned ruler of the planet.

He had failed to take into account the fact that there were no delivery systems in the base. So unless he wanted to blow himself up, he wouldn't be able to go through with his threat. More to the point, none of the nukes were even live, their detonators having been disassembled as part of safety regulations for safe storage.

That however, could be changed by anyone with enough technical expertise, and lack of sense.

\---

The main problem with the operation, in Armin's opinion, was that there was too many unknowns. Normally, the safest thing to do, would be to have Eren simply nuke the entire facility and take out the WMGs with it.

But they didn't know if the stockpile was composed of clean nukes or otherwise. Clean nuclear weapons were designed to eliminate fallout and prevent surrounding areas from being exposed to nuclear contamination. Dirty nukes had been used in the destruction of the capital and in other battles across the planet, and Shiganshina was still struggling with the problems brought on by radioactive pollution.

According to Armin's fallout projections, if the stash was composed of dirty nukes, than at least five settlements would be exposed to lethal amounts of fallout in the immediate aftermath, and even more would be exposed as the radioactive particles were carried by the winds to other places. Not to mention it would re-irradiate the entire zone, setting back almost ten whole years of decontamination. If the worst happened, than Eren could still nuke the place, but it was going to be their absolutely last resort.

Even worse, they had no way of knowing whether or not the outlaws had managed to rig up detonators for the nukes in the time it has taken for SES to arrive on-site. Each possibility was likely, no matter which way it was turned. There was also no way of knowing whether or not the outlaws were the type to blow themselves away, rather than face capture. If they guessed wrong on any of those counts, it could mean the loss of anyone who was sent in.

Just one nuke going off would spell disaster.

Reiner, thus, was the best for the job. His armored class titan would have the highest chances of survival in case the worst happened. Eren would be ready to shot down any outgoing missiles and/or unauthorized aircraft, along with the company's anti-missile batteries. Annie and her queen class would be standing by in case shit happened, and the rest of the 3D infantry would be waiting in the carriers for someone to give the clear.

There were many documented cases of armored titans surviving multiple direct hits from nuclear weapons, but even they had their limits. The thick armor plating and heavy shields that protected the titan could take a lot, but would it be enough?

There was no way of knowing

Armin hit his console from his place in the command carrier. "Alright Reiner, close in."

"Affirmative." The armored titan took a large step, and began slowly advancing on the complex. Arming hit another button on his console.

"Attention, all members of the outlaw band "Redskulls. This is Shiganshina Exploration and Security, working with the authority of the Shiganshina Council. You are currently wanted for unauthorized possession of weapons of mass destruction. If you agree to surrender all weapons of mass destruction currently in your possession, you will all receive immediate pardon for all crimes committed in the Maria system and be free to do what you will."

He paused and waited for a response. He didn't have to wait long.

"Fuck you." the face of the bandit leader appeared on a visual screen. He looked much like you'd expect a scrapwaste outlaw to look like, dusty clothes, a wild beard, and hair covered by a green bandana. "You make one fucking move, and we'll blow half this fucking planet into dust, just you fucking watch!"

"Your bluffing," Armin snapped back. "We know none of those nukes even have detonators. You couldn't even blow up your own base, let alone half the planet."

The bandit jerked back as if slapped. Armin studied his reaction closely.

"Y-you think we're fucking kidding!? Come at us, let's see how fucking brave you are when we fucking blast you into slag!"

"This is your last chance," Armin repeated. "Surrender your WMGs, and you go free."

"FUCK YOU!"

Armin killed the console feed. "He's bluffing. Mikasa, Jean, move your teams in."

\---

The troop carriers didn't even wait to land before opening their loading doors. Lines shot out from the open doors and SES's 3D infantry rocketed through the air, their guns at the ready.

Thankfully the operators of the base's old heavy weapons systems were more worried about Reiner and his armored titan. While normally, taking out the biggest threat first was just common sense, in this case the heavy lasers and high-density shells barely made a dent against Reiner's energy shields, and thick armor.

This left the 3D infantry free to approach. Autohackers quickly burned through firewalls, signaling the base's automatic systems to open all doors for them. (The outlaws hadn't even thought to engage the manual locks.)

Jean's team approached from an old freight elevator on the western side. Engaging their anti-grav generators, they used the propulsion engines at their hips to rocket down the shaft. They would be securing the base from the bottom up, and hopefully be the first to secure the WMGs.

Mikasa's team were entering through an old airfield observation tower. They would be hitting the old living quarters and offices first, with the intent of neutralizing any personnel who may have had the slightest clue as to how to detonate the nukes.

Armin in the meanwhile was still on the comm.

"Eren, hold your position. Orders remain to shoot down an unauthorized aircraft or missiles. Do some light bombardment on those old vehicle bays, if there's anyone in there, we don't want them starting up the vehicles. Reiner, make sure to keep everyone pinned in the buildings, try not to let anyone get across to reinforce the main building. Annie, move in to assist him. As for... SHIT! AIRCRAFT! EREN...!"

He didn't even finish his sentence before an ultrasonic missile burst across the sky, blasting the rising gunship into shrapnel.

Armin leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief. "Keep calm," he reminded himself. "That outlaw was bluffing. You're not going to get everyone killed."

\---

Jean's team caught the lower levels completely by surprise. No one had been expecting an attack from below, and had assumed that any attacker would have to first raise the cargo elevator, giving them an early warning. The 3D infantry blasting their way through the upper level of the shaft sent them scrambling for cover. Lines shot out from the hole, and Jean's squad propelled themselves into the maze of steam beams that made up the rafters of the underground warehouse.

Soon both sides were exchanging volleys of automatic fire from floor to ceiling.

"Jean," Connie hissed over the comm. "I've got some readings on this place. I think we're in the main storage area. If what I'm picking up is correct, our objective is right here! All the nukes should be stored in this area!"

"So we just have to hold this room, and no one has to worry about being blown up," Jean hissed back. "Great. We just need to get this scum out of here first."

The team crept slowly from beam to beam, driving the outlaws towards the exit bit by bit.

They nearly had the room secured, when one of the outlaws suddenly jumped out of cover, he was carrying some kind of shoulder mounted weapon and pointing it at them.

"SEE YOU IN HELL BASTARDS!"

Jean just had time to recognize an anti-vehicle laser, before a bright burst of light blinded him.

Even before anyone's vision had cleared, they were already firing towards the shooter. The man gave a last scream of defiance before being cut down.

They had been lucky. Lasers may be able to melt through anything, but they had a very narrow range of fire. If he had used any kind of fragmentary weapon or explosive, he might have been able to kill them all easily.

"Status!" Jean snapped into his comm.

"Connie here!"

"Thomas here!"

Silence.

"Marco? Status! You hear me?" Jean snapped back when their medical officer didn't respond. It was then he became aware of the screaming.

Marco was pressed up against a beam, clutching the burnt stub of his left arm where the laser had burned it away.

"Fuck!" Jean swore in panic. Marco was one of his oldest and dearest friends. Loosing a limb was still serious business, and while the emergency medical systems in Marco's armor would already have kicked in, there were still things that could go wrong.

Jean made the call.

"Connie, fall back and tend to Marco. Thomas, you're with me. The nukes are here, so we hold this place until the boss gives the all-clear! The sooner everything is nailed down, the sooner we can get Marco to the hospital!"

\---

Armin was practically biting his nails in the command carrier. He had done his part to the best of his ability, now all that remained was to see if his assessment had been accurate. They had already had someone loose a limb, and the cynical part of his mind was whispering that it wouldn't be long before one of his people lost their life. The titans now had the surface level locked up tight, now all that remained was for the infantry to secure the main building.

His console chimed. Armin brought up the video feed, to reveal the face of the outlaw leader. His eyes were wild and he looked even more feral than he did before.

"YOU THOUGHT I WAS FUCKING KIDDING DID YOU!?" He shrieked. "THOSE COWFUCKERS AT THE COUNCIL THOUGHT I WAS KIDDING TOO! WELL FUCK THEM, AND FUCK YOU! I'M GOING TO BLOW THIS ENTIRE PLANET TO...!"

There was the sound of a door opening on the other end.

"FUCK!" the bandit leader screamed. "WHY THE FUCK AREN'T YOU KILLING THOSE...!"

Mikasa's rifle butt smashed across his face. The outlaw leader collapsed on the ground, only to have Mikasa kick him in the head until he stopped moving. Mikasa turned to the console.

"As you can see the leader has been neutralized. The main building is secure."

Armin let out a tremendous sigh of relief. "Excellent. I'll send word to the Council, so their weapons disposal teams know its safe to come in. Jean's squad suffered a critical injury as well, so we'll be sending out a carrier to the nearest medical center ASAP."

He let out another long sigh.

It was over.

\---

All things considered, the mission had gone off far better than Armin had dared hope. Marco was still in physiotherapy, but he was adapting well to his new cybernetic arm. No one had gotten killed. (At least no one who mattered to any of them.) No settlements had been irradiated, and at least one loose nuclear stockpile had been taken care of.

The Shiganshina Council had of course paid SES very well for their quick and clean response to the situation. So much in fact that Armin had been able to advance his friend's and his retirement plan ahead two whole years.

The situation however had raised one very important issue. An issue they were all determined to see taken care of.

\---

"Lady Historia," Armin greeting, pulling away from his two friends to greet the woman who was one of their best clients. "Its good to see a major company like yours getting involved in this issue."

"Thank you." Historia smiled. "Yes, well considering what my company has unearthed in the last couple of years completely by accident," She cast a slight smile at Ymir standing behind her. "I should hope that the next titan that gets dug up here finds its way into responsible hands before disaster strikes."

Armin let out a small laugh. "Have you heard by the way, apparently a delegation from the Trost system is coming. They've already started to secure their old military sites, and are here to give an assessment on their efforts."

"I had," Historia smiled. "But, I see I've kept your friends waiting for you." She motioned for Armin to go ahead of her.

Armin bowed. "I look forward to seeing you at the talks," and he vanished into the depths of Shiganshina's Council building.

The first Shiganshinan Conference on Abandoned Weapons and Installations was about to begin.


End file.
